


Forgiveness when we least expect it

by serenitysolstice



Category: Wicked - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Book Verse, F/F, Glinda working through some stuff, I can do that if I want, Musicalverse, Post elphaba death, yes it's BOTH
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:35:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25905187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenitysolstice/pseuds/serenitysolstice
Summary: During a ball to celebrate the death of the Wicked Witch, Glinda just wants some breathing space to mourn. When she gets accosted By Dorothy, who has some questions regarding her...accidental eavesdropping, Glinda has to get some things off her chest.
Relationships: Elphaba Thropp/Galinda Upland
Comments: 2
Kudos: 62





	Forgiveness when we least expect it

**Author's Note:**

> Wew, it's been 84 years...
> 
> Dw, I do actually intend to finish my last gelphie fic. Life got a little bit in the way, plus I figured out why my brain doesn't work properly, so that's always fun!
> 
> I love doing Glinda character analysis, she's probably my favourite character, so I hope you guys enjoy this as much as I did!

She should have left. Galinda should have made her leave, the moment the Wizard had been clasped in irons and whisked away to that awful prison under Oz. She should have had the girl click her heels, and dissipate back to whatever plane of existence she bumbled in from.

But she didn't. Galinda was too good for that.

The people wanted a party. They wanted to celebrate their freedom from a Wicked Witch most of them had never seen, and freedom from the years of oppression under the Wizard that they'd never truly experienced. The people wanted a party, and a party was what Galinda gave them. It was the good thing to do.

Dorothy found her on the balcony of the Palace ballroom. Galinda wasn't surprised; it was the first second she let down her mask since, well, since catching an echo of green skin down a dark alleyway so many years before. It was only right that she not be able to catch a break.

"Anything I can help you with?" She asked, her eyes fixed on where the bright lights of her city faded into the horizon, her voice forced bright and airy. She played the role her whole life. She could manage one evening.

"No, thank you." The girl replied slowly. She came to stand beside Glinda, too close for the witch's comfort. She could feel the heat radiating off her skin; it was sickening.

"Then perhaps you should return to your ball?" The question - more of a suggestion, but Glinda blurred that line too easily nowadays - made Dorothy look at her suddenly, her eyebrows at her hairline. She'd been sharp, sure, but Glinda was trying her hardest, dammit." It is in your honour, after all." she added, softer. Dorothy shook her head, and turned back to the view.

"Its a little much for me, I'm afraid. We don't have parties like this back in Kansas."

"Then is there anything in particular I can help you with?" She glanced at the girl with her brightest smile. "I could end the festivities at a moments notice if you wish, let you get your much needed rest. You've done a wonderful thing today, Dorothy dear. You must be exhausted." She'd give any excuse to end the ball. She'd lie to a thousand children for a moment's peace alone with her grief, her guilt, her anger. But, once again, Dorothy did what children always did. She surprised Glinda.

"I heard you, you know? In the castle? I was still there, underneath those dirty floorboards, and I heard you."

"I - excuse me? I'm not sure I have the faintest idea what you-"

"You loved her."

"You don't know what you're talking about." Glinda snapped before she could stop herself. She paused, breathed, and tried a smile again. It wavered. "I'm sorry, that was very rude of me. What I mean is, it was complicated. She was complicated, and I suppose I was too. I hadn't spoken to her in years."

"Were you two sisters, like that poor woman my farmhouse - Aunty Em's farmhouse - fell on? Is there a South witch too, and is she good, or wicked?"

"Breathe child!" Glinda exclaimed. One hand fell on Dorothy's shoulder, silencing whatever question had been on the girl's tongue. "No, we weren't sisters, thank the Unnamed God. As far as I know, there's no witch of the South, though nobody really knows enough about Quadling country to be sure." Glinda paused, remembered dances, and public houses, and one bed in one room in a lonely farmhouse.

"You were friends?" Dorothy asked. Her voice was quiet and simple, a child asking a question because that's what children did. But to Glinda, she felt a weight behind the words. She could almost hear the grunting, low tones of the Witch asking her, sly smirk stretched across purple lips, daring her to contradict her. Glinda wouldn't disappoint.

"We were everything." She admitted hoarsely. "Friends. Family. Partners. Enemies. We were everything two people could be for each other." She turned to find Dorothy watching her with two wet streaks down her rosy cheeks. She didn't know what to do.

"Was she actually wicked?" Oh. Suddenly Glinda felt a little softer towards the child; she hadn't wanted a part in this anymore than Elphaba had.

"Truly? No. She'd never hurt anyone, nor had she wanted to. She... Well, you weren't the only person the wizard used in his scheming. All three of us played roles we never asked for."

"I didn't mean to kill her."

"I know."

"I'm sorry."

"I know that too." Dorothy's bottom lip trembled, and her eyes were wet again. It was the first time the girl seemed truly shaken.

"Am I wicked now too?" Glinda did something then that ten minutes ago she'd never have believed. She wrapped her arms around the girl and pulled her in for a hug. Dorothy sobbed into her shoulder.

Glinda gave the girl a moment to get the worst over with, let her breathing settle, and only then did she speak.

"Dorothy, I don't believe for a second that you're a wicked person. Since you got here you've just been trying to find your way back home, and you've been caught up in some of the worst political strife our country has seen in a century. You've been trying to help people left right and centre, and for the most part you succeeded." Dorothy pulled back to look at her, mouth still down turned.

" But I killed her. I killed your...your witch."

"Dear, she didn't die because she was so unholy water would melt her, like Oz would have you believe. Elphie had a very rare and very severe allergy to water. You couldn't have known that. I don't blame you, Dorothy."

It was, of course, far more complicated than that, but Glinda didn't want to burden the child with more woe than absolutely necessary.

"As I said, you were manipulated by the wizard, as was I, and as was Elphie."

"Elphie?" She asked. "Was that her name?"

"Elphaba." Galinda said, voice softening. "Named after a Saint that supposedly hid behind a waterfall for millenia. She let me call her Elphie though, when we stopped hating each other."

"Maybe," Dorothy said carefully. "Maybe your Elphie is waiting behind a waterfall now, for you? And when...and when your time comes, may you rest in peace, you can join her there?" For the first time that evening, Glinda felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes. She swallowed thickly.

"One can only hope." She murmered, eyes drifting back to the vast dark lands beyond Oz, out to the Horizon, where Elphie was waiting. 


End file.
